SOL

Kindly Couple

Things Could Be Better

Feminism Can’t Catch Helicopters.

Statistically Speaking of Course, it’s Still The Safest Way to Travel.

Gentlemen, This  Man Needs Help.

The first step toward curing any psychological problem is to acknowledge it. When you can put a name and form to it, when you can say what you are lonely for, you’re halfway free. Being conscious is your greatest ally. If you are able to admit to yourself how much you wish to fail, this is the beginning of a cure.

 Loneliness for What Is Not Yet

As we will see in the next chapter, Dante describes the lowest level of Hell as the most difficult place of all. It is one hundred percent FROZEN, entirely cold. Loneliness is always cold. It’s inhuman. The worst Hell is the frozen place of unrelatedness, disconnectedness. Hell ice is worse than hellfire.

The second kind of loneliness is the longing for what is possible but has not yet been realized. An alive, vigorous, functioning human being has a vivid intuition of what he is capable of. His intuition leaps forward, and he imagines what is possible. He fantasizes a perfect woman or a love affair that will touch him to the core. He feels lonely for what is not. He thinks that he sees out there what will assuage his loneliness. But that can only happen in here. When our value and sense of meaning are always outside ourselves—there is someone, something, some place, or some condition that will cure our problem, “just as soon as...”— we are stuck in an insoluble problem.

My next book should be entitled Just As Soon As...because “ just as soon as” psychology dominates almost everyone. 

• Just as soon as I get married

• Just as soon as I get divorced

• Just as soon as I have more money, 

• Just as soon as the cancer treatment is over. 

“Just as soon as” is an intermediate stage where you sense what matters to you, but you externalize it and don’t yet claim it as your own. Your felt need might be a new task, a new psychic capacity, or a new insight, but it is too soon to realize that it is your own gold. 

To sense this value, even if you cannot yet own it, is a start.

The first kind of loneliness—for what once was— drives us backward and downward. The second kind— for what is not yet—drives us forward and upward. At least this is a progressive loneliness. It drives us to accomplishments. 

But both of these kinds of loneliness DRIVE us.

Excerpt from: "Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection" by Arnie Kotler.

Suddenly: The light changes in the Fortress. The giant head of Jor-El materializes on the opposite wall.

JOR-EL

The virtuous spirit has no need for thanks or approval...

LUTHOR

What the...

EVE takes a step back, frightened. LUTHOR looks up at the image with increasing pleasure.

JOR-EL

... only the certain conviction that what has been done is right...

LUTHOR

It's his old man! The kid looks like him! Are you his old man?

EVE

Ask him where the bathroom is.

JOR-EL

... Develop such conviction in yourself...

LUTHOR

Are you here?

JOR-EL

... the human heart on your planet is still subject to small jealousies...

LUTHOR

(catching on)

Aahh, he's not here! He speaks from the past! Cute, very cute...

JOR-EL

... lies, and monstrous deceptions.

LUTHOR yanks the crystal out.

LUTHOR

So much for moral rearmament. 

“But there was one fix we couldn’t seem to wrap our collective imagination around: The Marriage. 

The Clark-Lois-Superman triangle—

• Clark loves Lois. 

• Lois loves Superman. 

• Superman loves Clark.

as Elliot S! Maggin put it in his intelligent, charming Superman novel Miracle Monday — seemed intrinsic to the appeal of the stories.”

“Sometimes, when you put your gold onto another person, he also puts his gold onto you. 

It gets complicated when the exchange of gold goes both ways. 

One of the contaminations of levels that we make— we’re scarcely able to think otherwise—is that the exchange of gold means marriage. 

Marriage is good, and gold is good. 

They may go together nicely. 

But they’re not synonymous. It can be a problem when we mix these things up. 

We think, “I’ve fallen in love, I must take her to bed.”

Maybe you will, but that’s not synonymous with falling in love.

In our culture, mutual projection is regarded as the prerequisite for marriage. 

We take for granted that we will marry the person we are in love with. 

But being in love is not enough to guarantee a successful marriage. 

When you fall in love, you feel overwhelmed with excitement. 

You’ve projected your gold, your deepest inner value, onto the other person. 

You’ve given it to her to incubate for a while, until you are ready to take it back. And if the feeling is mutual, she has given her gold to you.

For the relationship to succeed, somewhere along the way each of you has to take your gold back. 

Unfortunately, that’s usually accompanied by disillusionment.

“You’re not the knight I thought you were.” 

“You’re not a princess when you wake up in the morning.” 

The gold comes clattering down by way of disappointment. 

If we could only understand that we put our gold in someone’s lap for a period of time—until we get stronger—and someday it will come to an end. 

We aren’t wise in this respect, and it’s one of the most painful issues in our culture. 

 Five years later, when the relationship isn’t working, we don’t understand that it’s time for us to withdraw our projection and actually relate to the other person —our partner, our spouse.

True marriage can only be based on human love, which is different from romantic love, being in love, or in-loveness. Romanticism is unique to the West, and is a relatively new occurrence, only since the twelfth century. Romantic love is not a basis for marriage. Our human life, our marriage, is fed by the capacity to love human to human. When we’re in love, we put our gold—our expectations—on the other person, and this obliterates her. There is no relatedness.

Loving is a human faculty. We love someone for who that person is. We appreciate and feel a kinship and a closeness. Romantic love, on the other hand, is a kind of divine love. We deify the other person. We ask that person, without knowing it, to be the incarnation of God for us. Being in love is a deep religious experience, for many people the only religious experience they’ll ever have, the last chance God has to catch them.

One reason we hesitate to carry our own gold is that it is dangerously close to God. 

Our gold has Godlike characteristics, and it is difficult to bear the weight of it.

RAO

Doomed Planet

Desperate Scientists

Last Hope

 
 

Yes, I Have a Problem.

The first kind of loneliness— loneliness for The first kind of loneliness— loneliness for the past— is regressive.

It attacks early in life, during adolescence or early adulthood.

We want to return to the place we came from.

We want the comfort and security of the good old days, the way things used to be.
 

How many times do your dreams take you back to early times—the playground, the backyard, the tree you used to climb, your grade-school friends?

This is the backward-turning loneliness, a hunger for the Garden of Eden.
 

There isn’t much we can do about it. We can’t go back.
 

The Bible says that there is an angel with a flaming sword at the gate of Eden, forbidding reentry.
 

Backward-turning loneliness is the mother complex, the wish to return to your mother’s womb.
 

It is especially dangerous in men, because it becomes the will to fail, the propensity to relinquish power and regress.
 

It’s the spoiler in a man, stronger than most men are able to admit. When you have an exam at school or an interview for a job and you feel terrified, this is probably The Fear of Success.
 

The Enemy is Inside.

Excerpt from: 

"Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection" 

by Arnie Kotler. Scribd.

You will travel far, my little Kal-El. But we will never leave you... even in the face of our death. The richness of our lives shall be yours. All that I have, all that I've learned, everything I feel... all this, and more, I... I bequeath you, my son. 

You will carry me inside you, all the days of your life. You will make my strength your own, and see my life through your eyes, as your life will be seen through mine. 

The son becomes the father, and the father the son. This is all I... all I can send you, Kal-El.

"The Guide for the first part of your Inward Journey is your Intellect, the Masculine Traits of Intelligence, Proportion and Good Sense.

The Lowest Level of Hell is the worst. It is FROZEN. 

To reach The Coldness of Life — Loneliness and Meaninglessness — is The worst experience a human being goes through, worse than the fiery aspects of Hell. Under the guidance of Virgil, Dante gets to the bottom of Hell and just keeps going. You don’t come out of Hell through the door you entered. You go through it and out the other side. On the other side of Hell lies Heaven.

Dante and Virgil are in the middle of the world, which is where the Devil lives. And Dante gets through that nodal point, the point of zero gravity at the center of the world, by shimmying down the hairy leg of the Devil, and finds himself in Purgatory. 

Hell lays out what’s Wrong — the hellish dimensions of life — and Purgatory begins The Repair, what you need in order to be restored. 

You need to be treated.

The verb ‘to treat’ comes from the Latin tractare “ to pull or drag.” 

The earliest therapists had a series of stones with increasingly smaller holes in them, and you were literally pulled through —the biggest one first, a smaller one next, until you couldn’t be pulled through any more. You came out of this experience minus a bit of skin, but you were treated. 

Dante is pulled through A hole from the center of the world and begins his ascent through Purgatory, its many levels and teachings.

At this point, Virgil approaches Dante and says, “I cannot take you any further. One Greater Than I will be your guide from here.” 

Dante is shaken, because he has depended entirely on Virgil. Virgil continues, “Beatrice will guide you from Here,” the same Beatrice who had opened the vision of Heaven for him on the Ponte Vecchio.

Excerpt from: "Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection" by Arnie Kotler. Scribd.

St George in Retirement Syndrome

“In some ways the debate around the Trans question is the most suggestive of all. Although the newest of the rights questions also affects by far the FEWEST number of people, it is nevertheless fought over with an almost unequalled ferocity and rage. 

• It affects ALMOST NO-ONE 

• Women who have got on the wrong side of the issue have been hounded by people who used to be men. 

• Parents who voice what was common belief until yesterday have their fitness to be parents questioned. 

• In the UK and elsewhere the police make calls on people who will not concede that men can be women (and vice versa).

Among the things these issues all have in common is that they have started as legitimate human rights campaigns. This is why they have come so far. 

But at some point all went through the crash barrier. Not content with being equal, they have started to settle on unsustainable positions such as ‘better’. 

Some might counter that the aim is simply to spend a certain amount of time on ‘better’ in order to level the historical playing field. 

In the wake of the #MeToo movement it became common to hear such sentiments. As one CNN presenter said, ‘There might be an over-correction, but that’s OK. We’re due for a correction.’

To date nobody has suggested when over-correction might have been achieved or who might be TRUSTED to announce it. 

What everyone DOES know are the things that people will be called if their foot even nicks against these freshly laid tripwires. 

‘Bigot’, ‘homophobe’, ‘sexist’, ‘misogynist’, ‘racist’ and ‘transphobe’ are just for starters. 

The rights fights of our time have centred around these toxic and explosive issues. But in the process these rights issues have moved from being a product of a system to being the foundations of a new one. 

To demonstrate affiliation with the system people must prove their credentials and their commitment. How might somebody demonstrate virtue in this new world? 

• By being ‘anti-racist’, clearly. 

• By being an ‘ally’ to LGBT people, obviously. 

• By stressing how ardent your desire is – whether you are a man or a woman – to bring down the patriarchy. 

And this creates an AUDITIONING PROBLEM, where public avowals of loyalty to The System must be volubly made whether there is a need for them or not. 

It is an extension of a well-known problem in liberalism which has been recognized even among those who DID once fight a noble fight. It is a tendency identified by the late Australian political philosopher Kenneth Minogue as ‘St George in retirement’ syndrome. 

After slaying the dragon the brave warrior finds himself stalking the land looking for still more glorious fights. He NEEDS his dragons. 

Eventually, after tiring himself out in pursuit of ever-smaller dragons he may eventually even be found swinging his sword at thin air, imagining it to contain dragons.

If that is a temptation for an actual St George, imagine what a person might do who is NO saint, owns NO horse or lance and is being noticed by NOBODY. 

How might they try to persuade people that, given the historic chance, they too would without question have slain that dragon....?”

THE PURE UNIVERSE

 

THE PURE UNIVERSE 

(śuddhādhvan) 

The so-called Pure Universe comprising the top five tattvas is Not A Place; it is the divine Reality that pervades the whole of the manifest universe. 

The top five tattvas are essentially a description of God/dess. 

 

Though divided into five levels, they are all aspects of The Divine and are referred to as phases of God’s awareness. 


The differences between them are differences of perspective and emphasis. 

To reach any of the five tattvas of the Pure Universe is to attain complete liberation and awakening. 

 

TATTVA #5: PURE MANTRA-WISDOM
(Śuddha-vidyā)

 

The level of Pure Wisdom is also the level of mantra (besides meaning “wisdom,” vidyā is also the feminine word for “mantra”). 

The wisdom spoken of here is not any type of intellectual knowledge but rather the various phases of Śiva-Śakti’s self-awareness expressed in the form of the seventy million mantras— all the mantras that have ever existed or will ever exist. 

For the Tantrik tradition, mantras are actually conscious beings, analogous to angels in the Western religions. 

Someone who attains liberation on the level of tattva #5 becomes a mantra-being. 

We know that this doctrine, that mantras are conscious, was taken seriously because the texts tell us that if A Guru grants initiation into The Tantra to someone who subsequently falls from The Path, then that guru must perform a special ritual to apologise to The Mantras for putting them to work needlessly. 

It is absolutely crucial to understand that in this tradition A Mantra, its Deity, and its Goal are all one and the same.

Thus, for example, Lakṣmī’s mantra OṂ ŚRĪṂ MAHĀLAKṢMYAI NAMAḤ is the Goddess Lakṣmī in sound form; it is her sonic body.

Nor is her mantra something separate from the goal for which it is repeated, i.e., to cultivate abundance, for it is the very vibration of abundance (and, as well, the other qualities of Śrī: elegance, charm, grace, beauty, prosperity, and auspiciousness). 

So, all the various “deities” of Indian spirituality exist on the level of the Śuddha-vidyā tattva as phases of Śiva-Śakti’s awareness, the many facets, if you will, of the One jewel. 

Further, there are countless mantra-beings on the Śuddha-vidyā level that do not correspond to known Indian deities; perhaps we can suppose that the deities of all spiritual traditions exist on this level, insofar as they can be understood as having sonic forms. 

One who reaches liberation on this level sees the entire universe as a diverse array of energies, but with a single essence. 

She sees no static matter, experiencing everything as interacting patterns of vibration. 

The wonder of that which she sees takes precedence over her I-sense, though there is unity between them: “I am this!” (idam evāham). 

The divine Power that corresponds to this level is kriyā-śakti, the Power of Action. 

This is so because the primary characteristic of mantras is that they are agents of transformative change, i.e., of action. 

TATTVA #4: THE LORD (Īśvara) 

This is the level of the personal God, God as a being with specific qualities, that is, the Deity that can be named in various languages (whether the name be Kriṣhṇa, Allāh, Avalokiteśvara, YHWH, etc.) 

This is the level of reality that most monotheistic religions presume to be the highest. Īśvara is a generic, nonsectarian term for God (also found in Patañjali’s Yoga-sūtra). 

This level is associated with jñāna-śakti, The Power of Knowing, for Īśvara holds within His being the knowledge of the subtle pattern that will be used in the creation of the universe. He empowers His regents on tattva #5 (who are really aspects of Himself) to stimulate the primordial homogenous world-source (Māyā, tattva #6) with this pattern, “churning” her so that she begins to produce the differentiation of the lower tattvas, starting with the contractions called the kañcukas (#7 and below, see “the five shells”). 

At the level of Īśvara there is a balanced equality and identity between God and His incipient creation. The Sanskrit phrase said to express the experience of reality at this level is aham idam idam aham, or “I am This; This am I.”


There is a fascinating and purely “coincidental” parallel here with the self-declaration of the God of the Hebrew Bible, who when asked for His Name (at Exodus 3:14), replied simply, ehyeh Asher ehyeh, “I am That I am.” 

In Śaiva Tantra, it is not only God who exists at this level; so do any beings who have reached that same awareness. 

Thus the difference between Īśvara and other beings abiding at tattva #4 is one of office, not of nature. 

 

TATTVA #3: THE EVER-BENEVOLENT ONE (Sadāśiva) 

The word “God” is no longer applicable here, for this level transcends any form of a Deity with identifiable names or attributes. 

This is the level on which only the slightest subtle differentiation has just begun to emerge between the absolute Deity and the idea of the universe, the universe that S/he will create out of Him/Herself. 

Thus, it is the level of icchā-śakti, the divine Will Power, the creative urge or primal impulse toward Self-expression. 

The Sanskrit phrase said to express the experience of reality at this level is aham idam, “I am this,” or “This incipient totality is my own Self,” where there is identity between the Divine and the embryonic universe held within it. 

The sense of “I” has clear priority, wholly enveloping the “this”; so all beings who attain unity-consciousness with emphasis on the “I” pole abide at this level. 

The Sadāśiva-tattva is the first movement into differentiation, for at the level of tattvas #1 and 2, there is absolute nonduality. Abhinava Gupta tells us that the Divine at this level is called Sadāśiva, “eternally Śiva,” to remind us that even as a universe begins to come into being through the power of the Will, the Absolute loses none of its divinity, it is “still Śiva,” which of course also means “still blessed.”

Historically, Sadāśiva is also the name of the high deity of one form of Śaiva Tantra, a form that was later surpassed by the worship of the conjoined and co-equal pair of Śiva-Śakti. 

He is also pictured as the form of Śiva that sprouts the five faces that speak the five streams of sacred scripture. 

Thus Sadāśiva is sometimes considered the first ray of divine compassion. 

TATTVA #2: POWER / THE GODDESS (Śakti)

In the traditional tattva hierarchy, Śakti is #2, but in the nondual schools, care is taken to emphasize that Śiva and Śakti switch places, for they are two sides of the same coin. 

That is, neither Śiva nor Śakti has priority—it is a matter of which aspect is dominant in any given experience. 

The word śakti literally means “power, potency, energy, capacity, capability.” 

In NŚT, all powers are worshipped as goddesses, or rather as forms of the Goddess (Mahādevī). 

Śakti can no more be separated from Śiva than heat can be separated from fire. 

All forms of energy are Śakti, and since matter is energy (as the Tāntrikas well knew), the whole manifest universe is seen as the body of the Goddess, and the movements of all forms of energy are Her dance. 

The various aspects of Śakti are covered in detail above. 

The term śakti is often used to specifically denote spiritual energy, or God’s transformative power. 

In the scriptures, this meaning is often conveyed with the special term rudra-śakti, which refers to the primal, awe-inspiring divine Power that flows through us in spiritual experience. 

An infusion of this divine Power is called rudra-śakti-samāveśa, where samāveśa refers to the spiritual experience comprising an expansion of consciousness, a dissolution of the boundaries between self and other, a sharing of self-hood with God and/or with the whole universe, and often an blissful influx of energy. 

 

TATTVA #1: THE BENEVOLENT ONE (Śiva)

In the context of NŚT, Śiva is not the name of a god. 

 

Rather, the word is understood to signify the peaceful, quiescent ground of all Reality, the infinite silence of transcendent Divinity, or, in the poet’s phrase, the “still point at the center of the turning world.” 

 

While Śakti is extroversive, immanent, manifest, omniform, and dynamic, Śiva is introversive, transcendent, unmanifest, formless, and still. Śiva is the absolute void of pure Consciousness. 

(To be more accurate, Consciousness is never absolutely still, so on the level of the Śiva-tattva, there is what Abhinava calls kiṃcit-calana, an extraordinarily subtle movement, an imperceptible and exquisitely sweet undulation.) 

 

The word śiva is traditionally interpreted as “that in which all things lie (śī).” 

 

Thus Śiva is the ground of being, that which gives reality its coherence. 

His nature is beyond any qualities and is, therefore, difficult to express in words, but in Essence of the Tantras, Śiva is described as the coherence and unification of all the various śaktis. 

 

Thus, He is called śaktimān, the one who holds the Powers, or rather “holds space” for their unfolding. 

 

However, since Śiva is literally nothing without the Powers of Consciousness, Bliss, Will, and so on, it is usually Śakti who is worshipped as the highest principle in NŚT. 

 

Śiva is that which grounds and coheres the various powers; He is the Lord of the Family (kuleśvara), the center axis of the spinning wheel of Powers. 

 

As the coherent force, Śiva hardly has an insignificant function, but as he is not an embodiment of potency himself, he is less likely to attract worship in a spiritual system that is focused primarily on the empowerment of its adherents. 

 

The previous paragraph defined Śiva primarily as spaciousness, the hosting space for the energy that is Śakti. 

 

 

This space/energy polarity is the one given in a Trika text called Vijñāna-bhairava, among other sources. 

We should note that in other contexts, the roles are defined differently. 

 

For example, the influential Recognition school (a subset of the Trika) defines Śiva-Śakti as the two complementary aspects of one divine Consciousness: Śiva is the Light of Manifestation (prakāśa), also known as the Light of Consciousness (cit-prakāśa), and Śakti is blissful Self-reflective awareness (vimarśa). 

 

This pairing is sometimes concisely abbreviated as cid-ānanda (Awareness-Bliss). 

In this way of understanding Śiva-Śakti, He is the illuminative power of Consciousness that manifests and shines as all things, and She is the power by which that same Consciousness folds back on itself and becomes self-aware and thus can enjoy itself. 

 

While new students of the Tantra often want a simple, cut-and-dried definition of the polarity of Śiva-Śakti, the tradition does not offer one. 

Indeed, as this paragraph has shown, we get different definitions within the very same school. 

These need not be seen as contradictory, however, for the ultimate reality of Śiva-Śakti transcends all thought; the diverse explanations are just varying orientations or angles of approach to that one 

Reality, serving different students in different contexts. 

In another schema, that of the radical Krama school, Śiva disappears entirely, for there the two aspects of the One are represented as different facets of one Goddess: the indescribable Void of absolute potential, the formless ground of all reality (Śiva’s usual role) is represented as the dark and emaciated, terrifyingly attractive Goddess Kālī, who devours all things and makes them one with Herself; and the infinite Light that encompasses all things and beings with loving compassion and insight is represented as white and full-bodied Goddess Parā, overflowing with boundless nectar. 

But, Abhinava Gupta stresses, these apparent opposites (black and white, empty and full) are simply the two forms of the one great Goddess. 

The Krama school simply wishes to avoid the inevitably dualistic implications of the image of Śiva-Śakti as two beings joined together. 

How to reconcile these different presentations? 

The answer is simple: they need no reconciliation, for they are each perfectly fitted to the system in which they occur; and the absolute Reality beyond words can be represented by any of these schemas or by none. 

It is important to note that the term Śiva or “God” never loses its importance in this tradition. 

Some might construe the more refined philosophies of NŚT as atheistic because they wholly repudiate the notion of God as a separate person, “a guy in the sky,” or indeed as anything separate from your essence-nature as dynamic free Awareness. 

Yet it is significant that these very traditions continue to use the term “God” and its synonyms (such as maheśvara, “the Great Lord,” and parameśvara, “the Supreme Divinity”). 

It seems to me that they do not want to dispense with the love and devotion that is inspired in so many by this personalizing of the Absolute. 

They want a path of intimate relationship. 

At the same time, remember that the tradition gives us a beautiful nondual definition of the word “God,” one worth repeating: 

...in actuality it is the unbounded Light of Consciousness, reposing in its innate Bliss, fully connected to its Powers of Willing, Knowing, and Acting, that we call God. (Essence of the Tantras) 

It is in the context of this definition that we may understand such scriptural statements as “Nothing exists that is not God.”

 

But here we are anticipating the next segment: for “beyond” even tattva #1 is that which unfolds all the tattvas, from 1 to 36, within itself as the expression of its blissful self-awareness.

Or

“Everyone has wanted to 

make him small. 

Yet, A Monster.

 

Stupid. 

With Hypnotic Powers.

 

A Fascist, 

AND a Commie.

 

A prejudiced N***erlover.

 

A Macho-Punk. 

 

BOTH Christ, AND The Devil.

 

Or – 

On The Opposite Side 

of Everything”

— “Squeaky” Fromme, 

on The Fool, 

Charles Manson.

He was Our Goat.

The Losers :

No, don't! Let him go!

Let him go.

IT :

NO.

I'll •TAKE• him.

I'll take •ALL• of you.

And I'll •feast• on your flesh

as I •feed• on your fear...

.....Oooooorrrrr —

You'll just leave us be - 

I'm taking him, 

•only• him.

And then I'll have my long rest, 

and you will all live to Grow Old 

and drive, and lead hap-py lives until 

Old Age takes you 

back to The Weeds.

BILL: 

Leave...

I'm the one who 

dragged you all into this.

I'm s-s-s-s-, 

I'm s-s-sorry.

S-s-s-s-sorry.

Go!

BEVERLEY :

Guys, we can't.

RICHIE :

Sorry, Bill.

I told you, Bill.

I fucking told you, 

I don't want to die... 

It's Your Fault.

You Punched Me 

in The Face, 

You Made Me Walk 

Through Shitty Water, 

You Brought Me 

to a Fucking 

Crackhead-House…..

And Now…

I'm gonna have to 

KILL This Fucking Clown!

Welcome to 

The Losers Club, asshole!

‘G’-Force

[the narration between both Eastman and Morgan while training] 

Eastman : [the two train outside in the daylight]  It's about redirecting.

Morgan Jones : Evading.

Eastman : And actually caring about the welfare of your opponent.

Morgan Jones : So you have to care about yourself.

Eastman : You don't just have to believe your life is precious, but that ALL life is precious.

Morgan Jones : You have to redirect those thoughts, the history that tells you otherwise.

Eastman : What we've done, we've done.

Morgan Jones : We evade it by moving forward with a code to never do it •again•.

Eastman : To make up for it.

Morgan Jones : To still accept what we were.

Eastman : To accept EVERYONE.

Morgan Jones : To protect EVERYONE.

Eastman : And in doing that, protect yourself.

Morgan Jones : To create Peace.

RED POTTAGE

"Jacob shows his willingness as well as his greater intelligence and forethought. What he does is not quite honorable, though not illegal. The birthright benefit that he gains is at least partially valid, although he is insecure enough about it to conspire later with his mother to deceive his father so as to gain the blessing for the first-born as well.

“Later, Esau marries two wives, both Hittite women, that is, locals, in violation of Abraham’s (and God’s) injunction not to take wives from among the Canaanite population. 

Again, one gets the sense of a headstrong person who acts impulsively, without sufficient thought 

(Genesis 26:34–35). 

His marriage is described as a vexation 

to both Rebekah and Isaac. 

Even His Father, who has strong 

affection for him, is hurt by his act. 

According to Daniel J. Elazar this action alone forever rules out Esau as the bearer of patriarchal continuity. 

Esau could have overcome the sale of his birthright; 

Isaac was still prepared to give him the blessing due the firstborn. 

But acquiring foreign wives meant the detachment of his children from the Abrahamic line. 

Despite the deception on the part of Jacob and his mother to gain Isaac’s patriarchal blessing, Jacob’s vocation as Isaac’s legitimate heir in the continued founding of the Jewish people is reaffirmed. 

Elazar suggests that the Bible indicates that a bright, calculating person who, at times, is less than honest, is preferable as a founder over a bluff, impulsive one who cannot make discriminating choices.”

Hebrews 

Chapter 12

1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:

6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?

10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

12 Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;

13 And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:

15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;

16 Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.

17 For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

18 For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,

19 And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should not be spoken to them any more:

20 (For they could not endure that which was commanded, And if so much as a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart:

21 And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:)

22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,

23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,

24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.

25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:

26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.

27 And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:

29 For our God is a consuming fire.

 Revelation

Chapter 11

And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.

But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.

And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.

These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.

And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.

These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.

And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.

And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.

And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.

And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.

And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.

And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.

And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.

The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.